Somerset students report the news to their school

George Austin Editor

Wednesday

Oct 10, 2018 at 12:01 AMOct 10, 2018 at 2:55 PM

SOMERSET — Eighth grade student Henry James was staring at the computer screen in the classroom at Somerset Middle School last week. He was getting ready to write an article for the middle school newspaper and he knows a lot of other students will be reading what he writes. So he has to choose his words carefully.

"It's just really fun to hang out with my friends and write stories that people are actually going to read," James said. "It's really fun to put something together and see how it does."

This is the sixth year that the Somerset Middle School newspaper has been in existence. It was started by former middle school teacher Nicholas Overy as a project for his graduate studies and has been continued by advisor Kim Forbes, a volunteer who has a background as a newspaper reporter.

Eighth grade student Lily Botelho is the editor of the middle school newspaper this year. She was a reporter for the paper during her first two years at the middle school. She said she enjoys writing and so finds it fun to work for the newspaper.

"I was never really interested in sports or drama club or the musical things," Botelho said. "I was interested in reading and writing, so I thought the newspaper was the perfect place for those interests."

Botelho said she has learned how to interview people in the newspaper club at the middle school. When she was in sixth grade, she interviewed the new vice principal to introduce him to the middle school and last year interviewed coach Michael Johnson about the middle school's field hockey team and Keri-Beth Leatherwood about the school's science fair.

Botelho said she does not have a problem with the pressure of writing stories on a deadline for the newspaper and does her best to go over everything in the article to make sure there are no mistakes before it goes to print. The middle school puts out three or four issues of the paper per school year. Botelho said she wants her articles to be factually accurate and interesting for people to read.

Botelho said she comes up with ideas for newspaper articles by hearing about things happening at school or doing research on issues that happen outside of school. She said she sometimes reads newspapers and watches television news.

Botelho has written an opinion piece about gun control and an article about how to make a winning science fair project. She said the middle school newspaper helps students to improve their writing skills and inform people about what is going on at the school.

Botelho gave an example of how a student newspaper can have an impact on the school when she talked about how an article that James and his sister wrote at North Elementary School caused the school to change its rules about boys only sitting with boys and girls only sitting with girls in the cafeteria during lunch period.

Forbes said working on the newspaper has multiple benefits for the students. She said the more writing they do, the better writers they become.

"But more importantly, it gets them out talking to people," Forbes said. "They have opinions. The newspaper gives them a voice and they have to support their opinions with facts. They are literally having conversations with peers about things that are important to them."

Forbes said she teaches the students how to write articles that are fair and to keep themselves out of the story. She said there is no I in newspaper. She wants them to write about both sides of the story and to put themselves in the shoes of both positions when they are writing an article. Forbes said it is a different kind of writing exercise for the students, because instead of writing for their teachers, as they do in classes, they are writing for peers.

Forbes said Somerset Middle School Principal Pauline Camara gives the students a lot of freedom for what they write about in the paper and allows the students to have opinions in the paper, even if the school administration does not share those opinions.

"I applaud her for that," Forbes said.

Forbes said she explains to the students that Dr. Camara is the publisher of the newspaper. She said students come up with excellent ideas for articles. She said it is interesting to hear how students feel about an article.

This is the second year that James has been a reporter for the middle school newspaper. Last year, James wrote about new rules for dances and backpacks at the middle school.

"I just really like writing and documenting stuff," James said. "It's honestly really fun to do all these things and let people know what's going on."

James said that Forbes has taught him the skills to put together a newspaper article. He said some of the lessons he has learned have included what should be in the article, questions to ask people he is interviewing and what makes an article entertaining to read. James said Forbes has taught him writing skills, reading comprehension, how to pick out critical information and how to make that information useful for readers.

"She's like a really, really good writer," James said of Forbes. "She teaches us a lot of things we could use in the future."

James said students sometimes miss information that is announced at the school. He said the newspaper helps students to be more well informed about what is happening at their school.

Sixth grade student Rosa Baker joined the middle school newspaper this year. She said she has good vocabulary, but felt writing for the school newspaper could help her with her spelling and grammar. She said she usually watches news on television with her parents who she said like to watch The Rachel Maddow Show. Last week, Baker was working on a review of the Sweet As Pie shop in Somerset. She said she has been learning a lot about newspapers from Forbes and is excited about the first issue of the paper coming out.

"You have to have a lot of effort to have all these stories," Baker said of what will be going into the first issue of the paper.

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